


In the Forest of My Dreams

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Force Bond (Star Wars), M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 09:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11310600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Luke arrives at D'Qar. He and Wedge share an overdue conversation.





	In the Forest of My Dreams

The Millennium Falcon landed in a secluded hangar far from the base’s busy center. Only two people stood in wait: General Organa and Finn. Before the ramp could entirely detach Rey lept down onto the hangar’s tarmac—a new, sleeveless tunic flowing behind her—and ran to encompass Finn in a tight hug. His feet briefly lifted from the ground as she spun him, laughing, her lightsaber swinging where it was clipped to her belt (the scavenger’s staff still dutifully towering her silhouette). New muscle, scars, and callouses had solidified Rey’s build from borderline malnourished to strong and stocky. The majority of her hair now fell to her shoulders, with the rest tied away from her face in a small bun.

After setting Finn down Rey turned to General Organa and paused, overjoyed yet ready for the mantle of duty. But a stern countenance of determination broke into a beaming grin once Leia opened her arms. After they embraced, Rey and Leia moved with Finn to watch Luke’s descent.

Luke’s impromptu teaching had demanded physical ministrations which shed years from his face, and the regularity with which he started preparing Rey’s meals adjusted his own diet to healthy standards. The broken and lonely man Rey desperately besieged was entirely different from the teacher she’d grown to love and admire.

Both warred across Luke’s face as he stepped down from the Falcon. Finn’s mouth gaped. Rey tried to look supportive as possible without using the Force. General Organa’s expression remained stone.

Then Luke was standing before Leia, hands at his sides, blue eyes wavering as he faced his sister for the first time in years. She wrenched him into her arms and held him there for several moments, muttering unheard words into his ear that made him clutch her even tighter.

The day was spent quickly with several introductions and reunions as Rey showed Luke around the base. Eventually she sat with her best friend and teacher in a small forest clearing at the base’s outskirts, where Finn regaled his story to Luke.

“Poe named me when the TIE fighter was still docked,” he said, lips quirked just slightly, staring wistfully at an invisible memory. “FN was just a part of my serial number—but now I’m Finn.”

“So you like it?” Luke asked.

“Yes.” Finn’s cheeks darkened at the admission. He glanced up bashfully. “I mean, I couldn’t have come up with anything.”

“I look forward to meeting him,” Luke said.

“Poe Dameron,” Rey smirked. “He’s a squadron leader, and the best pilot in the galaxy—according to some,” she added cockily, “but he hasn’t flown against me yet!” She frowned and turned to Finn. “I haven’t seen him at all today. Where is he?”

“At a meeting, I think, with one of the colonels.”

Rey’s brow furrowed. “Is something wrong?”

Luke spoke. “If there was, Leia would have said something.” He moved to stand. “It’s getting late, isn’t it?”

Dusky sunlight slanted downward through the trees at his words. Rey grimaced; like Luke, she had difficulty meditating, a daily requirement.

“Fine,” she grumbled.

Luke appraised them both. “But, today is special.” He shrugged. “Go have fun.”

Rey beamed. “Really?” She scrambled onto her feet and clasped Luke’s hands with hers. “Thank you, Master.”

She flurried off with Finn in tow. Luke watched them disappear back through the trees. They were nice kids. Good kids. Despite the rest. Luke, and others of his era, had not been offered the same respite.

Luke rolled his shoulders now. They were sore. His spine twanged. Weariness filled the hollows of his bones. He sat down again, atop the same stone, devoid of motivation.

Someone’s footsteps crackled through the underbrush.

“Well, I don’t know what I was expecting,” a painfully, intimately familiar voice said from behind.

Luke did not move. “I hope nothing more than this.”

Wedge laughed bitterly. “Of course not. I’m the realist, right?”

“You are.”

“That makes you a dreamer.”

Some dreamer, Luke thought, if all I end up with is nightmares.

“I haven’t been for a long time,” he said.

“I’m not too realistic either, these days,” Wedge confessed. “Look at me.”

Inaction was one thing, refusal another. Luke turned around.

Wedge was dressed in fatigues and donned a naval colonel insignia. He had lost a few inches and gained a few pounds. Black locks gave way to predominately gray hair; his eyes crinkled more at the corners; his jaw was softer. Luke once knew this man more than he knew himself. Now that remembrance was superimposed by a decade’s worth of change that Luke would never know, because he hadn’t been there to witness it.

He wanted to look away but could not, fastened to the spot and the surreal sight of his husband.

Wedge broke first, to lift a hand. “Can I touch you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Luke breathed.

Hot-white pain bloomed on Luke’s jaw before he could realize Wedge had smacked him.

“I deserved that,” Luke said. He stood and spread his arms in surrender, palms upward. “Anything else?”

Fury tangled Wedge’s expression. “I hate and love you so much I couldn’t put it into words.”

“We never had wedding vows,” said Luke.

“I thought we didn’t need them.”

“We were wrong.”

“You’re here now,” Wedge pointed out. “Fucking bastard. That counts for something.”

Luke remained quiet.

Wedge cursed, fists clenched. “You come back only to feel sorry for yourself? You can do that alone.”

Luke sighed. “Wedge...”

“Don’t waste my time. Why are you here?”

“I’m ending the Jedi.”

Wedge stilled, face blank in shock. “What?”

Luke nodded. “There’s no going back, Wedge. I tried. I failed.”

“But Rey...”

“Is training in the Force. The Force does not deal in absolutes.” Luke looked away, eyes turning melancholic. “There are greater things beyond the Jedi, the Sith. Dark and Light.”

“I don’t understand,” Wedge said.

“I don’t have the words,” Luke replied.

Wedge paused, calculating. Then he stepped closer. “Show me, and I’ll show you.”

Luke’s eyes widened.

“It’s the only way we’ll understand each other,” Wedge said. “Remember?”

Luke did. His mind melded with Wedge’s, both of them half awake in terror, half stuck in a nightmare mixed with their own fears, stumbling toward each other in the darkness of the Echo Base dorm. With further discipline, Luke learned how to cage his dread...and share his joy. Force-enhanced romping, whispers into Wedge’s thoughts, images of love and terror projected when words were not enough—they refined every technique together. Action and thought synchronized to a point which transcended regular communication.

“Yes,” Luke said. “I do.”

He took Wedge’s hands. Despite the years, they still fit perfectly in his.

The two men closed their eyes.

It would be dark and starry before they reopened them. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> "Meet me at midnight in the forest of my dreams. We’ll make a fire and count the stars that shimmer above the trees."
> 
> ~ Christy Ann Martine


End file.
